The Cure: Divinity
by Arcturox
Summary: Professor Allan Lavin Meets up with an unlikely comrade and embarks on a journey to save Rapture from it's hell.
1. Prologue: Divinity

**Prologue:**

Professor Allan Lavin looked over his nearly completed work. It was a masterpiece. He sighed and began to think of his now almost bright future. He had begun work on his "New generation" of plasmids almost three years before; after he had seen the beginnings of riots, the random killings in the streets, and eventually the fall of the city he had come to love.

Rapture.

It was once a beautiful place. Now it was filled with the deranged remains of what were once its citizens. The splicers had run rampant in the streets undeterred for a long time now. Soon it would all end. Professor Lavin was almost finished with the newest in a long line of plasmids. He called it "Divinity" and it was a cure. A cure to all that was evil in Rapture


	2. Chapter 1: Surprise

Dr. Fluff sat uselessly against the wall, his drill hanging at his side. His baby girl was gone. What's the point of being a big daddy if you have no one to protect? No one to fend off potential threats from. Ever since his little sister had left he hadn't known what to do. He tried hunting splicers at random, but it hadn't held his attention for very long. He had tried exploring, but there was only so much to explore. After the long time he had too think by himself he had developed a small sense of individuality he was no longer a follower of ADAM. He wanted something different. Though he was to dim to find a way out of the city, he desperately wanted change. So when he found a small locked room with sound and light coming from inside he was delighted. There were words across the front etched into a plaque. Dr. Fluff had a vague wish to read it but the thought quickly fluttered out of his mind, but even if he could have read it he wouldn't have understood what it meant.

The door read "Prof. Allan Lavin: Plasmid specialist"

Dr. Fluff pondered at the door for a moment. How was he supposed to open it? His little sister had always opened doors when they needed to be opened. He tried to remember how she had done it. She would reach out her hand and do….something…. Dr. Fluff couldn't remember. He examined the door thoroughly. His eyes wandered to a round thing on the door. Perhaps it had something to do with that? Dr. Fluff reached out his hand to it. He wasn't sure what to do after that. So he hit it.

Allan was once again running through his newest variation of divinity for defects when a noise startled him. It had come from front door to his lab/fortress. _Perhaps it's a splicer? _He thought. _A good first test subject for the new formula. _His hand clasped around the cold metal grip of his shotgun and he reached for a syringe filled with divinity. Slowly and carefully, he began to creep closer to the door. He had just begun to calculate which side of the door he should approach from when the door crashed open revealing a prey much larger than Allan had expected.

Dr. Fluff scrutinized Prof. Allan. _He's not one of those things… should I kill him anyway?_ Dr. Fluff wondered. _No. Not yet anyways. He's not hurting my sister._ Then Dr. Fluff remembered once again; he had no sister. He lumbered past Prof. Allan glumly and plopped himself down in the corner of the lab with a thunderous slam. He dropped his head into his hands and began to cry. (Though to the professor it sounded more like a growl) Why had she left? Where had she gone? Dr. Fluff's small and easily distracted mind had already forgotten the professor and moved on to more saddening memories of his little sister.

Professor Lavin stood with his back against the opposite wall of the beast that now occupied his laboratory. His knuckles were white from gripping the shotgun and his sights were trained on the Daddy's massive helmet. He knew that simply firing at it was worthless however. How many shots could he get off before the thing had its drill against his skull? Three? Four? It wasn't enough. So Allan slowly moved into a more comfortable seating position and began to try and configure a plan of escape.

The massive steel hulk in the corner continued to sob for a few minutes. Then slowly began to list to one side and gave off an odd gurgling noise. After perhaps twenty minutes of this Allan decided the Daddy had begun to sleep. The Professor carefully arose, avoiding any sudden movements and inched his way to his worktable. His fortress was no longer safe. He would take his plans and a bottle of his formula and leave to find a more suitable lab. He lay his shotgun down on the table and began to quietly collect his things in a small box. No sooner had he put his weapon down, than a low rumbling sound came from the mass in the corner. Allan made a move for his weapon but the Daddy was already fully awake and watching for the professor's next move. After a moment of hesitation Allan decided against it. If he reached for the shotgun now, the Daddy would surely see it and kill him. So he sat down in his chair and began to act busy. Perhaps if he did this for long enough, the thing would become bored and leave. This did not however work as he had planned. Instead of becoming bored the Daddy came closer and seemed interested in what he was doing. Allan was concerned. He was slowly running out of busy work but the Daddy continued to loom behind him and watch. Allan moved some of his papers aside and began to stack them into organized piles. As soon as he began to pick up one with his signature on it an excited sound came from the Big Daddy and a massive leather-gloved hand reached down. Professor Lavin fell out of his chair in surprise and readied himself to flee, but instead of attacking him the Daddy continued making excited noises and pointing one of its clumsy fingers at the paper. Allan got up slowly and looked where the Daddy was pointing.

Dr. Fluff was very pleased with himself. He pointed excitedly at the markings on the paper. He'd recognized the letters from the door and wanted to show off his new found knowledge. Though he continued pointing at where he wanted the man to look, the man still looked very confused. So Dr. Fluff pondered for a moment. How could he make the man understand? Then it came to him. He walked back towards the door and reached down with his giant hand. He grasped a small shard of the former door and raised it for the man to see.

Now Lavin was truly confused. The beast had a broken piece of the door in its grasp and was holding it out to him. With a great amount of caution the professor moved closer to get a look at the chunk of door. To his amazement, it was the piece of the door with his name plaque nailed to it. The Daddy once again pointed towards Allan's signature on the paper. The creature had recognized his name! Now he was intrigued. He had always thought of them as mindless killing machines but now he saw them in a whole new light. The Big Daddy wanted to learn.


	3. Chapter 2: Flashback

The Daddy pointed to a capitol "H" on one of the papers for the third time and Allan patiently repeated his explanation.

"That is an 'H'. It make the 'huh' sound."

Just like the previous time the big daddy mad a pleased sound of acknowledgement and moved on to another letter or word on the sheet. By now Lavin was a little tired from his new roll as teacher and gave an exaggerated yawn in order to make the Daddy understand it was time for him to sleep. The Daddy looked stared at Lavin through his glowing green lenses. Though Lavin knew it was impossible for the thing's metal face to show emotion, he could have sworn there was understanding and knowledge deep down beyond the blank, unfeeling, metal exterior.

"It's time for me to go to bed," said Lavin, getting up from behind his desk and moving towards the thick metal door to the back of the room. Then his eyes landed on the broken pieces of wood still strewn across the floor. Lavin reached up and scratched his head.

"Looks like I still have some work to do before bed is an option. Security has to be top priority, you know?"

Dr. Fluff looked down at the thick, wooden, cluttered desk and then at the empty door frame.

He judged it to be around the right size.

He grasped the desk firmly, turning it upright and allowing all of the bottles, papers, and vials, to clatter to the floor.

"Awwww! No! Bad! Don't do that! My Work!" Lavin yelled over the sound of his possessions dropping across the room. Dr. Fluff did not seem to hear him and proceeded to shuffle over to the door with his desk in tow. He then shoved the desk forcefully against the open doorway blocking it completely. Professor Lavin was about to continue his yelling at the beast but instead dropped his shoulders and sighed. Arguing with a big daddy is most definitely _**not**_ a good idea. The daddy shambled back over to Lavin and stared down at him, looking expectant. Lavin was puzzled for a second but then he got it. He wanted praise for a job well done. "Well um, thank you," Lavin said while looking sadly at the pile of his things that now occupied the space where his desk had been. Allan felt a second wave of sleepiness hit him; he really needed to rest now, not only for the hours of testing and re-formulating the next day, but he would also have to allow time in the morning to make his office functional again. He turned back to the steel door behind him and was about to unlock it when he was posed with a barrage of his own questions. What about the big daddy? The thing had seemed friendly throughout the day but really, how much trust can you place on a monster? How can I sleep with that thing here? He turned to the hulk behind him and made a decision. "I think, if you want to stay here that is, you should sleep out here." The beast cocked its head very slightly to the side questioningly. "You know…at least for tonight ok?"

The daddy turned around regretfully, lumbered back to the corner, and sat down with a thump. Lavin hesitated a moment and then waved to the daddy and closed the door behind him. He slid the lock-bar across it like he always did and walked down the short corridor to the next door. This door was slightly thicker than the previous one and had a massive combination lock welded to it. He turned the dial to the correct code and pushed the vault-like door open to reveal his bed chamber. He shuffled past the crate of ammo and the weapons shelf to his bed and dropped onto the fluffy relief of the mattress. Soon, he had pulled up his blanket and started to drift away from the room where he had just been into a deep, dream filled sleep.

Lavin looked up from the counter to see a man who looked completely insane with rage. His clothes were ripped and a small gun wound was visible in his side, bleeding profusely.

"DOCTOR, GET ME SOME MEDICINE!" he yelled to the Professor, his voice cracking partway through.

"I'm sorry, you have the wrong place," Lavin said "This is no hospital."

"No…" The man's tone suddenly dropped to a whisper. "This is the place I want..."

The man paused.

"What?" Lavin questioned.

"Plasmids…"

Lavin looked into the man's crazed, bloodshot eyes and saw that they held only one emotion within them. Anger.

"Plasmids! PLASMIDS DAMN YOU!" The man screamed like a maniac and leapt over the counter only to be blown back by an unexpected blast from behind the professor. Lavin's ears rang after the small explosion, and temporary shock left him speechless. He turned to see where the shot had come from to see one of his colleagues, Dr. Benjamin Perry, wielding the shining metal form of a shotgun.

"Lavin, I came up to give the order to evacuate the facility."

Lavin didn't answer, but stood, dumbstruck, with his mouth half open as if he were about to speak.

"It's a good thing I came when I did. Look, Lavin, me and the rest of the research team have a plan we're cooking up to get somewhere safe. The splicers… they've started…infesting the city."

Lavin shook his head and tried to force himself back into reality.

"What plan? Where are we going?"

"One of the rich folks in the district, Mr. Callahan, has been building a vault since he first heard of the plasmid side effects. He's a bit eccentric, you know? We should be safe…" Perry paused "If we can get there."

Slow deliberate steps could be heard coming from the corridor that lead to the lab. He began speaking in hushed tones to Lavin. "Get down the hallway, there's some weapons stocked up down there. It's not much, but it will do. I'll catch up in a minute."

"But Ben-"

"JUST GO!" Perry yelled at Lavin as the door to the lab exploded open. A woman emerged from the smoke with a blood dripping hook in each hand. Her maniacal laughter echoed throughout the room and more deranged chuckles joined with hers as three slouched, shadowy forms emerged from behind her. Lavin took off down the hallway and leapt over the railing into the stairwell. Shotgun blast after shotgun blast exploded behind him and the crazed screams of what were once citizens rang in Lavin's ears. Then…Silence… soon followed by the slow creeping of footsteps and the sliding of a body over the tile floor.

Lavin awoke in a pool of sweat. He sat up in his bed and dropped his head in his hands. He hadn't had that dream in ages. He hoped he would never have it again. Allan forced himself out of his comfortable, welcoming bed and shuffled over to a small and dirty coffee machine. As his pot was brewing he decided to check on the big daddy from the previous day. _Is it still there?_ He wondered. He doubted the hulk had much of an attention span. He turned the combination lock to the correct code and pushed the heavy vault door aside to reveal the corridor to his office.


	4. Chapter 3: The Locked Door

(Sorry for the long wait on this chapter. I've been a little preoccupied with school and family lately)

The steel door to Lavin's office swung slowly open with a sharp creek and he peered inside. No sign of the daddy. He glanced around the room; nothing. _Where could that beast have gone?_ Lavin wondered. The Desk was still wedged into the door. Lavin nimbly sidestepped the pile of junk in his way and walked briskly to the makeshift door. He leaned closer to the desk and spied through a crack near the doorframe. Outside the door lay the big daddy. Around him lay the bodies of two men and one woman. All of them bore the scars and tattered clothing of splicers. The big daddy's drill arm was now reddish in color; blood splattered across its rusty surface. Lavin looked down at the bodies sprawled across the floor. The Daddy was definitely good to have in a fight.

Lavin pulled the desk quietly away from the door and stepped over the body of one of the men. He stood next to the big daddy and looked up at him. Its green eyes were locked on the body of the woman. She looked like she used to be quite pretty. Although her flower-patterned dress was in rags and she was covered in small scratches and bruises, her face was well sculpted and had a look of porcelain to it.

She reminded Dr. Fluff of his little sister.

A small sob escaped him, the memory of his lost sister bringing him to tears. To Lavin it sounded more like an unintelligible grunt, but he understood it just the same; instinctually, he reached up his arm and laid his hand on the monster's shoulder, hoping to give some sort of comfort. Through his metal encasing Dr. Fluff felt nothing, but he looked down at Lavin, acknowledging him, then lumbered back through the doorframe.

Even after such a gruesome occasion the big daddy wished to continue learning his letters from Allan (after some cleaning up). Lavin had written a few simple words on a sheet of paper; such as: pencil, eraser, wood, fork, spoon, etc. Next to the paper lay all the objects corresponding to these words. This was to test the daddy's learning capabilities to see if the beast was even capable of understanding the human language system. Lavin sat on the floor (because of the absence of his desk) and looked up at the big daddy, gesturing to the paper. The daddy dropped down to the floor as well, mimicking Lavin, and leaned towards the paper, pointing a massive finger towards the word in the upper left corner. "Spoon" said Lavin, pointing to the spoon on the ground and then to the word. The daddy puzzled for a moment and then clasped his hand around the spoon. Its thin silver form looked minuscule in his giant gloved hand. He stared at it for a moment then taped it against the wooden floor, making a metallic ringing noise. "That is a _spoon_," said Lavin pointing to the object again.

"Urh," replied the daddy, continuing to tap the floor.

"No, _spoon_," said Allan once again.

"_Oorh_," struggled the daddy. The tapping stopped and he put the spoon back into place.

Allan was genuinely surprised. The monster had attempted to speak, and it had come close! Allan was delightfully excited at his new discovery and picked up the fork, handing it to the beast.

"Fork," said Allan plainly.

"Urk," the big daddy replied, holding the fork up to its massive metal helmet.

Allan clapped and laughed at the daddy's attempt. He would never have imagined the hulk could have even come close to mimicking human speech, but, the thing had just come surprisingly near to saying "fork". Of course, it didn't sound that impressive at first, but really it was a big step forward in understanding the monster. Despite the revolutionary development in educating the daddy, Divinity still had top priority on his things to do. He had already wasted too much time. After putting the paper and learning objects away, he shifted his attention over to the pile of stuff that occupied the floor of his office. He plopped himself down next to the pile and began to organize the mass of items. He began to set them up exactly the way he had had them before (only on the floor of course).

An unhappy thought sunk its tendrils into Lavin's mind. He would soon need a new door. Although the desk served as a general barricade, it was surprisingly easy to move and wouldn't serve much purpose as a permanent door. He would have to take one off of one of the nearby residential units; they were the closest source of doors to Lavin's workplace. That would mean being beyond reach of his bunker for an extended amount of time. Lavin wasn't used to that. He hadn't been outside his complex for quite some time. All he had for weapons were a shotgun, a few shells….

_And… _he thought. _A very large friend…_

The daddy looked questioningly up at Allan's devious smirk. With the hulking daddy at his side, no splicer would dare attack him. Lavin dug through the pile of his possessions and pulled out his ancient shotgun. On the side he could still make out the faint letters of a name on the side. The word _Orion _was framed by some barely visible intricate golden designs. Lavin assumed it had once belonged to the previous resident of his office, Mr. Callahan. He slung the shotgun across his back.

"Come on daddy; let's go get us a new door." Lavin said, motioning for Dr. Fluff to follow and moving towards the desk. Somewhere in the beast's mind he realized they were leaving and he grasped the sides of the desk with both hands, pulling it from the doorframe and roughly dropping it to the floor. Lavin peaked out into the crimson-carpeted corridor beyond his office and checked in both directions for any movement. No sign of splicers. He stepped out into the open and turned to the right, towards the residential section of the district. Dr. Fluff was close behind him, following each footstep Lavin made. Allan looked back to see the daddy struggling to step exactly where he had and smiled. _To imagine a giant grotesque half-metal beast could be cute…_he thought to himself as he turned another corner. He stopped suddenly. In front of him lay a massive pile of boards and rubble strewn across the hallway, doubtlessly scattered by some explosion from the riots those long years ago. Not realizing the professor had come to a stop, Dr. Fluff walked right into Lavin's back, almost knocking him to the floor.

"Clumsy beast!" Allan said, glaring at the daddy, "Watch where you walk!"

Dr. Fluff trudged past Allan, clearly ashamed. Lavin brushed off his dark green trousers and walked up to where the daddy stood, just before the pile of debris. Lavin felt a little bad for yelling at the daddy but never voiced his apology. Instead he pointed to the pile of stone and boards.

"Can you move that?" Lavin asked

"Ooorh," Dr. Fluff replied, obviously getting the general idea of what Allan had asked. He reached out his bulging hands and began to pull away massive chunks of stone and cement from the pile. The strength of the monster continued to astound Allan. The daddy moved heavy loads like it was nothing. Even for a creature of his enormous stature such objects would be difficult to lift, and the daddy wasn't even having the least bit of trouble tossing two foot diameter pillars casually to the side. Soon enough, a large enough path had been cleared for both Allan and Dr. Fluff to get through and they moved on to the residential section. Allan trod lightly on the ancient carpet. Lavin had never been to the residential units on this side of town and had no idea when or where to expect a possible attack. They walked past the first two apartment doors. The were both smashed in, probably broken into and looted during the early days of the riots. The third was intact, with only a few scratches on the door. Lavin was pleased enough with this one and began to unscrew the hinges (which were conveniently on the outer part of the doorframe). Dr. Fluff stood by and watched down the hallway as Lavin did his work. Just as Allan was starting on the third screw the sound of a faint whirring caught his attention. His ears strained to find where the sound had come from. The noise began to grow in intensity, Lavin realized the sound had come from behind him and whirled around, unslinging the shotgun from the strap across his back. Soon he saw that the sound was arising from the hulking drill attached to the daddy's right arm. Dr. Fluff let loose a low throated growl and his gaze never wavered from the other end of the hallway. Lavin looked unhappily to where the daddy stared. A gang of eight to ten splicers had collected there.

Lavin and Dr. Fluff had already been spotted.


End file.
